Snow White: A New Take on an Old Favorite

Like most preschoolers, my daughter loves dress-up. In fact, she wears her dress-up clothes more often than her regular clothes. We even have a rule: At home, you can pick your clothes, when we go out, Mommy picks the clothes.

So the other day she asked me to make her a Snow White dress “on my sewing machine”. How could I say no?

As I stood in my sewing room, taking inventory of my fabrics, I realized I had nothing even remotely close to the right fabric. Then some of my brightly colored knits caught my eye, and I had an idea. She lives in these clothes, right? I mean, she wears them everyday and often sleeps in them too. So why not make them comfy?

So I pulled out my trusty favorite pattern and constructed myself a knit, peasant-style, Snow White inspired dress. No frou-frou, no zippers, no buttons, no hemming.

At first I couldn’t remember exactly where each color was supposed to go, but I was able to find 1 or 2 hints around the house.

It seems there is a big discrepancy among Snow White paraphernalia regarding the yellow stripe down her bodice. The original movie has it, but some of the licensed images don’t. Since I had the absolute perfect ribbon for the project, I decided to include it.

Of course, as soon as I was done, she pulled it on and hasn’t taken it off since. Her first response? “Thanks Mommy. Can I have a Sleeping Beauty dress now?”

I did the sleeves in the worst way possible – I cut them out of the blue fabric first, then I slashed them and sewed in strips of red. Then I pleated the red so those strips would be closed on the top and bottom, but open in the middle, THEN I made the elastic casing, which with all those seam allowances and pleats was so bulky I could barely get the elastic through. I don’t recommend it. Your suggestion of sewing the strips and then cutting out the pattern is much better and probably won’t look any different. I think the cuteness of the pleats in the red fabric was totally lost once the whole thing was gathered anyway.

This is adorable!!! Reese is in love with snow white!!! I might have to whip one up for her one day :) Thanks for the inspiration & for adding one more thing to my to-do list :) Any suggestions on where to buy good knits? I have been trying to find different colored/white striped knits and having a hard time!

I got most of those knits at Joann.com and fabric.com, but hartsfabric.com, chezami.com, crybabysboutique.com, thefabricfairy.com, and aboveallfabric.com all have a good selection of knits too. Also, if you have any kind of fabric district, or mom & pop fabric stores near you, they are sometimes better about carrying knits than some of the chain stores.

I’ve always wondered what would happen if I used knit to make one of Smootch’s ‘princess dress’ requests, since she usually never wears them more than once because they ‘scratch’. This looks great, thanks for the inspiration!

Your blog is absolutely my new favorite!!! I paint for a living – so sewing is my relaxing hobby, and you have the BEST ideas!! The witty remarks in the posts are right up my alley too. Keep it up, I anxiously await each new post :)

These are so cute! I love the Snow White and the Bell! Maybe when you are done with all the princess dresses you could make some of their other clothes. Like Belle’s dress that she wears in the Village and Cinderella’s dress when she cleans her house. ;D

I just came across this post again. When you first posted it it, I was not feeling too confident with my sewing skills, but now I think I could do this! I bet I even have all the fabric needed in my to be recycle bin. (Including a brand new xl yellow knit tee I picked up off the walmart $3 rack last year.) I come back and post a link when I am done.

I ended up making this today :) I did my sleeves differently though – Since I am 9 months pregnant and short on patience and I have a 3.5 year old who wanted her dress RIGHT NOW – I just sewed on red ribbon to the sleeves. No cutting and piecing. I firmly stitched them at the top and bottom and evenly spaced them and it looks nice and floaty on her. If I have anymore yellow knit after I finish the Belle tutorial for my 5-year-old, I will certainly make another! Thank you so much!